The present invention relates to improvements in apparatus for filling receptacles in the form of trays or chargers with rod-shaped articles of the tobacco processing industry, especially for introducing plain or filter tipped cigarettes or filter rod sections into receptacles (hereinafter called trays) which are used for temporary storage and transport of stacked rod-shaped articles to further processing stations. More particularly, the invention relates to improvements in apparatus of the type wherein a magazine has a lower end portion or outlet portion with a plurality of article-discharging ducts for transfer of articles into the interior of a tray and wherein the tray moves relative to the magazine and/or vice versa in order to enable the tray to accept and confine successive layers of articles.
It is well known to fill trays with layers of cigarettes or analogous rod-shaped articles by admitting one layer after the other and by shifting the tray and/or the layer during introduction of the layer into the tray so that the articles of the incoming layer are staggered with reference to the articles of the layer therebelow. Such mode of filling trays is quite satisfactory as regards the distribution of articles in the interior of a filled tray. However, the outlay for machinery which assembles successive layers and transfers the thus assembled layers into trays is considerable. Furthermore, the operation is relatively slow, especially for a plant which employs high-speed processing machines whose consumption is extremely high. Therefore, many of the just mentioned conventional tray filling apparatus are already replaced with apparatus wherein a magazine discharges several continuous streams of rod-shaped articles into a tray which continuously descends in the course of the filling operation. Such apparatus can fill trays within shorter intervals of time; however, the likelihood of misalignment of articles in the interior of a tray and/or the likelihood of the development of gaps between certain articles in the tray is much greater than if the trays are filled in stepwise fashion, i.e., by introduction of successive layers under highly controlled and predictable circumstances. The preferred mode of filling trays with rod-shaped articles is that according to which the array of articles in the filled tray constitutes a so-called quincunx formation, i.e., wherein the articles of each upper layer are staggered with reference to the articles of the layer therebelow so that each article of the upper layer rests in a valley between two neighboring articles of the lower layer. This ensures highly economical utilization of the space in the interior of the tray as well as the formation of a stable stack. Absence of uniformity as regards the distribution of articles in a filled tray is undesirable for several reasons including the likelihood of damage to articles if one or more articles lie askew and particularly fluctuations in the quantities of articles which are admitted to a processing machine as a result of evacuation of the contents of successive filled trays into such machine. Thus, the supply of articles in the processing machine is likely to fluctuate within an undesirably wide range if the quantity of articles in a preceding tray greatly exceeds the quantity of articles in the next-following tray or vice versa.
An apparatus which assembles layers of rod-shaped articles prior to transfer of such layers into a tray is disclosed, for example, in commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 3,662,880 granted May 16, 1972 to Kochalski et al. An apparatus which can discharge a plurality of continuous streams of rod-shaped articles into a continuously or stepwise descending tray is disclosed in commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 4,207,720 granted June 17, 1980 to Gerhard Tolasch et al. The disclosure of the patent to Tolasch et al. is incorporated herein by reference. Note should be taken of German Offenlegungsschrift No. 2,803,317.